Greyhound racing is about to round its last lap in Kenosha, and Wisconsin.

Dairyland Greyhound Park announced Tuesday it will close its doors after racing ends Dec. 31, ending a long-running battle against competition from casino gambling operations.

The 19-year-old track has lost $17 million over the last seven years and is on track to finish close to $4 million in the red for 2009, Dairyland Executive Vice President Roy Berger said.

The track’s total race handle fell 14 percent in 2008 and is down 28 percent this year, a trend Berger said was exacerbated by the recent addition of racing simulcasts at Potawatomi Bingo and Casino in Milwaukee.

“We’re just at the point where there’s no upside to remaining viable,” Berger said. “If there was, we’d find it.”

Dairyland has remained in operation in recent years with the hope that the Menominee Nation wins federal and state approval to develop a $1 billion casino complex on the site, 5522 104th Ave.

The tribe, which is now in litigation attempting to overturn a January denial of the project, will continue to hold an option to purchase the track, Berger said.

Berger said Dairyland management will continue to support the casino application. Backers say the project would create roughly 3,000 jobs.

“To us, if there’s a silver lining here, it’s going to be the approval of that casino,” he said.

Casino project spokesman Evan Zeppos said the project’s backers have empathy for the difficulties the track and its employees are facing.

“We obviously wish there was something we could do about that,” Zeppos said. “The only thing we could do about that is to continue to push for the project.”

Workers displaced

Closing the track will put roughly 180 people out of work, many of whom were on board since the facility’s June 20, 1990, opening.

Berger said Dairyland will help the workers move into new jobs, while collaborating with the state and the track’s kennel owners to find homes for about 900 dogs that race at the facility.

Security guard Janet Hornickel is one of the employees who will be displaced. She has worked at Dairyland for most of its existence. Her mother also works in security, as did her late father.

Hornickel said she was surprised, but yet she wasn’t, when she got word of the closing Tuesday morning. She had expected an announcement closer to next Monday, the deadline Dairyland management faced to apply for 2010 race dates from the state.

“I’m just surprised and thankful that they’ve kept it going this long,” Hornickel said. “They could have closed a few years ago.”

Dairyland was one of five Wisconsin tracks that opened after a 1987 amendment to the state constitution allowed for a state-run lottery and legalized parimutuel betting.

The others — in Delavan, Kaukauna, Lake Delton and Hudson — have all closed, unable to compete with the state’s tribal casino offerings that began to emerge in the 1990s.

State might have helped

State lawmakers said Tuesday’s announcement came as efforts were under way to craft a package of state and local tax breaks to aid Dairyland.

The track made about $1.2 million in tax and fee payments to the state in 2008, according to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo. Rep. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said the proposed aid plan was similar to a provision that was proposed, but stricken, from the state budget in 2007.

“We knew it was touch and go, but it still takes you by surprise when it happens,” Barca said of the closing.

Berger said any state assistance simply could not have outweighed Dairyland’s mounting losses.

Sen. Robert Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie, said he could not blame Dairyland for its decision.

“You can’t ask people to keep losing money, and that’s the position they were in,” Wirch said.